Ian McDowell, center, defends a reader, at right, from an errant fact (artist's conception by the late Frank Frazetta; click to enlarge).

NYT runs a correction on the vital question of cover art for the ERB Mars series.

"An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the city-state Zodanga. The article also misidentified the publisher of the editions whose covers were illustrated by Frank Frazetta. It was not Ballentine (sic), which also published the books."

I hope they end up crediting Gino D'Achille for his work on those paperbacks -- the publisher of which, by the way, the Times misspelled in its correction; I've emailed the patient and friendly Chip McGrath again.

Comments

[Mick]

Is that the Batman emblem on his chest?

[Joe Killian]

An interesting, word-for-word graphic adaptation of "A Princess of Mars" by a Burroughs aficionado and fellow North Carolinian.

Not Safe for Work.

[Ian McDowell]

Touche, but who is my Dejah Thoris? I only know one woman who looks like a Frank Frazetta painting come to life (appropriately enough, she wrote much of the Wiki entry on the late Russ Meyer, whom she knew but is too young to have ever acted for). Sadly, Amanda is married to someone else and living in London.

Like Mick, I've noticed the way John Carter's medallion resembles the Batman emblem. However, that's not something that would have occurred to me or Frazetta back in 1971, when that symbol looked rather different. It's always been a stylized bat, and since the 60s, a stylized bat in a gold or yellow oval, but it wasn't until the 1989 Tim Burton movie that it looked like that.

[Ian McDowell]

And Joe, wow, that's some really obsessive stuff there. If you want to see James Killian Spratt's work in uncensored form, you have to click the link at the bottom of the Boingboing post, which takes you to www.comicsbeat.com, and then click the first link on THAT page, to get to a navigable index of all of the chapter of A Princess of Mars that Spratt has adapted so far. Of you can just copy and paste the following link. Don't worry, it's not a porn site and there's no spam, it's hosted by ERBzine, a Burroughs fansite.

http://www.erbzine.com/mag13/1301.html

Reading the Barsoom novels as a kid, I have to admit that I often wondered if John Carter's description of himself as "naked except for my harness" really meant that he was leaping around in nothing but his sword belt and gun strap, his man-parts dangling in the Martian breeze. Spratt's answer is an emphatic yes.

[Ed Cone]

Ian, your Dejah Thoris is akin to the robust man wearing a sash labeled "Copper Interests" in a 19th Century political cartoon -- she is a stand-in for all the beautiful and scantily-clad readers of this blog.

[Billy Jones]

Ed, "a stand-in for all the beautiful and scantily-clad readers of this blog."

Thanks! I didn't know you noticed.

[Ian McDowell]

Crikey, now I'm imagining Billy in some combination of diaphanous silks and leather. No, no, words not pictures!

Considering the importance of Ian and Betty Ballantine to the publishing industry, and the status their paperback line had throughout the 60s and 70s, I'm surprised someone at the Times would misspell their name (not that I've not more equally egregious errors). I can't imagine Michael Dirda making the same mistake over at the Post.

[Ian McDowell]

Speaking of Michael Dirda, there's a very nice piece by him about Burroughs and Barsoom at today's BarnesandNobleReview.com site. As usual, he writes about genre fiction with clarity and sans condescension.

A Dreamer of Mars

There's the now expected Frazetta confusion, although it's more minor here. He refers to cover illustrations for the Barsoom books having been done in the 60s by Frazetta and Roy Krenkel (Frazetta's longtime friend from his school days, and occasionally his collaborator). As I keep saying, while Frazetta and Krenkel were all over the 60s Ace editions of Burroughs' work, either singly or together, and Ace did publish some Barsoom novels before losing the rights to Ballantine in '62 or '63, I'm pretty sure that their Barsoom editions all had covers by Krenkel solo (Frazetta did Tarzan and Pellucidar and Carson of Venus for them). At least, the only Ace Barsoom covers a Google image search turns up are a couple by Krenkel.

[Billy Jones]

Ian, are you saying you don't find me attractive?

[Ian McDowell]

Not at all sir, you are a striking fellow! I just don't think the Burlesque Queen of Outer Space attire that A Princess of Mars is typically depicted as wearing is really your style.

[Billy Jones]

Ian, "I just don't think the Burlesque Queen of Outer Space attire that A Princess of Mars is typically depicted as wearing is really your style."

You're probably right, my butt is too big.